"He knows that if he does this, I'll lose my daughter," Brian Cashman's mistress Louise Meanwell told me. This was the night of Jan. 31. Two days later, it was done: Meanwell—also known as Louise Neathway—was arrested and charged with extortion and harassment, with Cashman the victim of her alleged crimes. The day after that, Cashman's wife, Mary, filed for divorce, after 16 years of marriage.

What happened between Brian Cashman and Louise Meanwell? On Saturday, the Daily News—which was quick out of the gate portraying Meanwell as a deranged stalker—reported that a week before the NYPD arrested her, Cashman had tried to arrange to get her institutionalized, having his lawyer ask Meanwell's mother to call 911 and report her daughter as mentally unstable.

On Jan. 31, Meanwell had emailed me a recording of a phone call between her and Cashman in which she castigated him about the meeting between her mother and his lawyer. "No one told her what to say, and that call was made by her," Cashman says. "So goodbye. I'll talk to you with a lawyer. I will talk to you with a witness."

Five months ago, when I first contacted Louise Meanwell/Neathway, she told me emphatically that she was not romantically involved with Brian Cashman. I had been looking into a different affair, Cashman's 2009 relationship with Kim Brennan, which broke up Brennan's marriage and strained Cashman's own. That led Cashman to move out of his household in Darien and into a new home in Rowayton.

No, there are no photos of Cashman's actual dong to show you—not that we know of—but now the…
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I got a tip from a former friend of Meanwell's that her friend was also involved with Cashman. When I asked Meanwell about it, she said that she and Cashman were just friends, that they'd known each other for six years, but there was never anything physical between them. Our source sent an email, supposedly from Meanwell, to prove otherwise:

Hey sweet heart, apologies in not getting back to you today. Been running around for mum and doing some shopping (I may attempt to cook for Brian tonight lol).

Yes, all is going great. Finally getting to see him as mum is on vacation so he's coming to her house so no one see's him and the yanks are on the road. Can't wait to see him it's a very difficult situation for him. I think I may just rip his clothes off as soon as he walks in the door :-). I sometimes wish he wasn't who he was. Not being able to go anywhere without people being oh your Brian Cashman. It's very annoying. Anyhow, let's do brunch as soon as I'm back in the city?

Love you,

Louise xxxxxx

Louise told me her email had been hacked. She threatened to bring in a lawyer. She offered to pay me money not to run a story, even a story in which she would deny the allegations.

Eventually she calmed down, a little. To further establish the ridiculousness of her friend's (or hacker's) claims, she wrote me this:

And to note AJ. Brian would be out of his league with me im about 2 inches taller than him and about 10 years younger than him. All the money on this earth would not make me want to go there. Some women do have standards you know and he does not fit into mine, lol.......

***

By the end of January, though, she was showing me what she said were Cashman's toothbrush and his size-medium pajama pants. Height wasn't an obstacle after all. As for all the money on this Earth, apparently Yankee tickets were reason enough for romance.

When we met at her Leonard Street apartment on Jan. 27—the place where the NYPD would pick her up for arraignment—she told me how the affair had begun: "I first hooked up with him as a dare. My girls said it was a way for us to score tickets. You know, 'Take one for the team, Lou!'"

We had two beers as we talked. She was livid and anxious, and she showed me multiple records of her talks with Cashman, whom she'd been calling incessantly. She used a program called Trapcall, to hold the logs and to unmask the "blocked" numbers Cashman was calling her from.

During our conversation, Louise kept taking calls from her mother, Carolyn (or Caroline) Meanwell, and putting her on speakerphone. The mother claimed that both Cashman and his attorney, Eric Creizman, had visited her and were pleading with Carolyn to get Louise some help or else they would press charges. Louise refused those offers and told her mother that Brian was trying to manipulate her and scare her because she had threatened to go to the press about their affair.

Louise told me initially that her relationship with Cashman had soured just that week. During an argument, he had insinuated that Kim Brennan, his former mistress, "was hotter" than Louise. This enraged Meanwell, who deduced that Cashman must still be seeing Kim Brennan. Louise tracked down Brennan's Facebook page and confronted her (Brennan, as reported Saturday, has filed a restraining order against Louise.)

Louise
Wtf is wrong with you?? And you can't answer me??!?? Clearly from your deep lines and wrinkles your older than I. So one would think as a more mature woman u would have the balls!! Tramp

15 hours ago Kim Brennan
Who are you ? Nothing to answer you about. Just leave me and my family alone please. Why the interest in my life ? A lot more out there for such a lovely girl like yourself, leave the elderly alone.

15 hours ago Louise I don't know your family and don't want too. Please stay away from Brian. And thank you for your kind words. Yes, I know I'm attractive.
Don't wish to know your family. Stay away from Brian and his family I have done enough damage. And thanks for the kind words. I know I'm very attractive.

15 hours ago Kim Brennan
I am sorry that you would feel the need to contact a complete stranger and say the things you are saying. I don't kow what you mean by saying "you have done enough damage" since you seem to know everything, and know brian maybe this conversation should be with him and not me.

15 hours ago Louise
I know all about you Kim.
Stay away.
I don't care who I contact it's called balls. And I guess my constitutional right to freedom of speech.
His kiss have been devastated by your dirty dealings.
Kids.

15 hours ago Kim Brennan
Stay away from who ? Are you threatening me now ? You know nothing.

15 hours ago Kim Brennan
good for you, but you know nothing and whatever you think you know is not true or accurate but you are right everyone is entitled to their opinion. I am sure brian will provide you with whatever answers you are looking for.

15 hours ago Kim Brennan
Please leave me alone if you have any other questions I am sure you can get all the answers from brian, no need to contact me.

14 hours ago Louise
So why r u sleeping with a married man
Just not right.

14 hours ago Kim Brennan
Again I will tell you that you don't have any idea what you are talking about . I will ask you why are you contacting me ? And why do you have any interest in my life ? And if " you have done enough " like you say than why are you asking me anything ?

14 hours ago Louise
Sweet heart. He's married with two beautiful kids. Why would u want to interfere in that?

14 hours ago Louise
Typo meant u have done enough damage. I've done nothing to that family and nor would I. Brian adores his children and is never hurt then. But sometimes women just see $$ signs especially when they do not come from money themselves.

14 hours ago Kim Brennan
Again, you should be talking to someone else. I have my own family.

14 hours ago Louise
I'm on a phone and typing is shite.
I do too thank u.
So why after all the Brian's song bs would u still keep it going.
Dong lol
It's sick. Poor teddy and grace.

14 hours ago Kim Brennan
I think you should find out all the facts before you contact someone you don't know and clearly no nothing about.

14 hours ago Louise
Its not no its know
I don't care about u I care about Brian and his beautiful children.

14 hours ago Kim Brennan
And I don't care about you either, you put yourself into a matter that you have no business being in. You assume you know things when you clearly don't. I don't understand why you would do that and who you even are, so why are you doing this ?

14 hours ago Louise
Because I care about ted & grace suffering more than they have already. And I kinda feel bad 4 Mary.
And he's married do u not have morals.
Your a gold digger
I've known Brian for 7 years

14 hours ago Kim Brennan
If you know brian so well why are you talking to me ? Why don't you speak with him ? You have the wrong person, you know nothing about me.

14 hours ago Louise
It's not u I care about. It's about u ripping a family apart and clearly not even caring about it. What kind of person does that for gods sake.

14 hours ago Kim Brennan
You don't know me at all, you know nothing about any of this. I haven't done anything, and I am not doing anything. Why is it of your concern I will never understand, but that is the truth.

14 hours ago Louise
I don't want to know u. I want to know your not hurting those innocent kids anymore. It's not fair to them

14 hours ago Kim Brennan
Haven't done anything.

When reached by phone, Brennan acknowledged her past relationship with Cashman, but said that the two are just friends now, and that whatever was going on between Louise and Brian is not her business.

On Tuesday, Jan. 31, Louise decided to further humiliate Brennan with a website inartfully called "KIM BRENNAN THE HOME WREAKER AND HUSBAND THEIF" (http://kimbrennanhomewreaker.blogspot.com/) It was live for a little more than five hours, then was taken down. Hours afterward, Louise told me that she realized Brennan wasn't at fault and apologized to her. "This all about Brian, that evil little man. It's not her," she yelled at me into the phone.

Tuesday evening, I met with Louise again at her apartment where she showed me some of the texts that she and her mother were receiving from Brian's attorney and her therapist, Charlotte Murphy. From the nature of the texts, it was obvious that both parties felt threatened by Louise's behavior. Louise—clearly under stress and frighteningly manic—railed on about how she was planning to sue both Cashman's attorney ("I'll have him disbarred!") and her therapist ("She will lose her license for sharing my information with Cashman!") . She was determined to press forward with the details of their affair should she get locked up. "He knows about my past! I've told him all about it. He knows that if he does this I'll lose my daughter!"

She also showed me this, an email she had sent Cashman on Jan. 27 containing a sonogram. She claimed this was a baby, fathered by Cashman, that she aborted at his request—presumably the unspecified "medical procedure" that the Times mentioned on Friday and that lies at the heart of the extortion charges.

From: Louise Neathway [redacted]
Date: 27 January 2012 12:57:33 EST
To: bmc@[redacted].com, [redacted]@txt.att.net
Subject: how can you live with this or sleep knowing your treating me like a piece of trash? please. when i look @ this it makes me cry-im going to get full records tomorrow from ob/gyn in case you pull anything with me.

As Friday's divorce filing suggests, her relationship with Brian Cashman was not one-sided, nor was it a fantasy by any means. In the course of our two conversations in her apartment, she provided a detailed account of their affair. Some salient details:

• Louise saw her name pop up alongside Cashman's in the comments section of several websites beginning last summer. She claimed that she had been instructed by Cashman to reach out to the editors of these sites—CBSSports.com and ESPN, she said—to have those comments removed.

• Louise is still friendly with former pitcher Tanyon Sturtze. She showed me text messages between her and Tanyon, including one in which he jokes about going to the press with their affair unless Cashman gave him an assistant GM job. We tried to reach Sturtze for comment, without any luck.

• In Saturday's Daily News story, a former friend of Louise's is quoted as saying: "She used to be gorgeous, a pretty wild child. She claimed she had an affair with (a former Yankee slugger)." That slugger, according to a source was Jason Giambi. During my conversations with Louise, she mentioned Giambi several times and alluded to a past friendship with Giambi and his wife. They would socialize together, mostly at bars, she said. She also said Giambi was not a fan of Cashman.

• Louise said that Cashman was "very sweet, gentle, understanding" throughout most of their relationship, but when he did get angry in front of her, most of it stemmed from frustrations about the Yankees. "He'd talk a lot of shit about Joe Girardi," she said. In addition, Louise said that Cashman had become more touchy after his father was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer.

• Other Yankee frustrations: "He was so pissed off when Mariano went to the press about his throat thing and didn't run it through Yankee PR first."

• A more recent job gripe Louise heard from Cashman: "He was angry about some Puerto Rican or Dominican player. I forget his name. He was just traded to the Mariners. But Brian was frustrated because there was apparently some trouble with the player's visa." Top catching prospect Jesus Montero, a Venezuelan, was traded to the Mariners on Jan. 13. It took 10 days for the deal to go through, due to a visa issue.

• Louise and Cashman conspired to help cover up the affair by concocting a story that Cashman was helping Louise with her work with charitable organizations. Louise told me she and Brian never officially worked on charities together, but decided to create that appearance anyway. Louise had an idea. She had a blind friend whom she could introduce to Brian Cashman. The blind friend, Tom Lanzot, attended a Yankees game on June 10, 2011, and sat in Suite 46, Row 1, Seat 1, along with a sighted companion (also a longtime friend of Louise's). In a phone conversation, Lanzot confirmed that game he attended was set up thanks to Louise's relationship with Cashman. Lanzot said Cashman sat next to him for a portion of the game and that they briefly discussed Cashman helping out with his organization, VISIONS/Services for the Blind. "He was so nice to me," Lanzot said. "A perfect gentleman." Lanzot also received a game ball that day from Cashman. I asked Lanzot if he knew anything about the relationship between Louise and Cashman. He said it was clear that they knew each other and that Cashman "was willing to do things for her" but he did not pry into the extent of the relationship since that's not his business.

When pressed, though, Lanzot said that he assumed Cashman and Louise had a sexual relationship. "I had heard about Louise's past issues with her husband but I never knew she was capable of doing this sort of thing. However, she and Cashman knew each other for a while. If she was stalking him the whole time, he could have taken care of that a long time ago," Lanzot said. "He was still a perfect gentleman to me that day and I'm grateful for the time he gave me. But the most placid ones are sometimes the most devious, right?"